The Gift
by NebulousMistress
Summary: Weird one-shot AU. Mid season 7 team, Huddy never happened, vicodin never stopped, House/Wilson friendship. House treats a patient with 'clinical lycanthropy'. Turns out it's not just 'clinical'...


Now **this** is AU. Call it mid-season 7 but it's Huddy-free and tests positive for vicodin use.

I lost internet for four days. On the second day I started writing. By the time I got internet back I had 15k words and couldn't stop. It's wildly AU, a weird combination of science and fantasy. It's got everything: humor, angst, horror, weird, friendship, actual science, you name it.

Disclaimer: Of the characters you might recognize, I own none of them. Of the characters you don't recognize, those might be mine. Never-the-less, I make no money off of this. If I did I might be able to pay my internet bill...

-00000-

The office was bustling with boredom. Chase sat marking up that day's newspaper crossword, Masters was studying for a test, Foreman was trying to read a journal article, and Taub was trying to distract Foreman with a game of paper football. Foreman gave up and put his fingers down in the shape of a field goal.

House walked in and slapped a file folder on the table just as Taub flicked the football. Foreman had to duck as it shot high and wide. He and Taub glared at House, Chase put down his crossword, and Masters tried to ignore them all. "Test on Friday," she said.

"Case today," House said, nudging the tip of his cane under one of her textbooks. He flipped it closed. "This one's fun."

"You took a case just because it's fun?" Masters asked.

"Masters, meet Dr. House," Chase said, deadpanned. After all the months she'd been here…

"Patient is a thirty-two year old werewolf," House announced.

"It's an imaginary case?" Foreman asked.

"Good one," Taub muttered.

"Patient was diagnosed with clinical lycanthropy nine years ago," House said, ignoring the insults. "She believes she turns into a wolf."

"How is this relevant to the case?" Foreman asked.

"I don't know," House said. "But it's interesting. Differential diagnosis. Descending paralysis, no fever, unaltered mental state. And it's not botulism."

"But that's classic botulism," Masters said. "Textbook case. See?" She flipped to the correct entry in her textbook.

"PCR was negative for any botulism toxin," House said. "But go do it again to make sure."

"Could the test be wrong?" Taub asked.

"Four separate runs?" House asked. "Go do number five then come back when it's negative."

"Shouldn't we get a patient history?" Masters asked.

House picked up a clipboard. "Where do you think I'm going?" he said, grinning like Christmas had come early.

"He hates talking to patients," Masters said once House was gone.

"He loves crazy," Chase said. "It's the way they think. They're not boring."

"Until they stop being crazy, then they're boring again," Foreman said.

"How does that work?" Masters asked. "Successful meds? Remission?"

"Buy coffee and I'll tell you," Foreman said, heading off to do those tests.

Masters pouted.

-00000-

"It's easier to let people think I'm crazy than it is to describe it," the patient said. House checked her file, her name was Winifred or something. _Who names their kid Winifred these days, _he thought.

"Oh of course," House said. "Because normal people don't turn into animals on the full moon."

"That's a misconception," Winifred said. "Everyone thinks it's linked to the moon. Personally, I blame movies. The full moons are nice, it's all bright and stuff, but they're not the only times I change and go out."

"Could you change now?"

"Why would I want to? I feel like I'm made of lead. The most I'd get out of that is shot at again."

"Again? When was this?"

"A few weeks ago," Winifred explained. She tried to move her arms but they laid there. She growled in frustration, a deep animal growl. "Right side, lower ribcage," she described, giving up. "Some idiot with a shotgun tried to gut-shoot me. I was scaring his dogs or something. I had to jump a fence to get away from him. The bastard shot me while I was already running away! Who the hell gut-shots a fleeing animal?"

House gently lifted the edge of her hospital gown and found several angry red pocks. He slipped on some gloves and poked at one. She hissed in pain and he could feel a small metal ball under the skin. "Why didn't you go to the police?" he asked.

"And tell them what, I turned into a wolf one night and some rat bastard shot me?" Winifred demanded. "Bullet wounds or no, you really think they'd do anything?"

"Point," House admitted. Still…

-00000-

Within two hours the homicide detective had arrived, taken half a statement, and left in annoyance. His parting words of "She's crazy, what did you expect we'd get out of her?" stayed with House as he ordered his team to work with the guys in the morgue to get ballistics data.

"Tell them it'll be just like normal, except she bites," House told them. Their patient had gotten worse in just a few hours with eye paralysis, blurred vision, and the beginnings of vocal paralysis. It was looking more and more like botulism.

He looked at the test data. They'd run PCRs for every botulinum toxin it could be. All turned up negative. Their best bet was to get some grad students with the university to do some mouse bioassays but that would take time and if it were botulism he expected his patient to start showing signs of respiratory distress within six hours.

Waiting might be the best they could do.

-00000-

Two hours later Chase found House lying on the floor of his office. Chase stood over the man, holding out the ballistics report. He let it fall, the file folder dropping neatly onto House's chest. House picked it up and held it over his face, flipped it open. Didn't quite work, the papers kept falling on him. He closed the file and looked up expectantly.

"We did like you said," Chase summarized. "We ran two possibilities, one assuming a single gunshot, one assuming as many shots as necessary to account for the spread. It couldn't have been a single shot. The human body isn't structured right; all the shot pellets came in from a different angle. But that doesn't make sense either, that would mean every single shot pellet represented a different gunshot."

"What if she isn't crazy?" House asked. "What if she really was a wolf at the time?"

"Then you're the one who's crazy," Chase said.

House sat up and looked at the report himself. He crunched numbers in his head, made assumptions, changed the curve of the body assuming…

Whoa…

"Start her on broad spectrum antibiotics," House said. "And get her into surgery before she can't breathe. Remove the shot pellets, they're abscessed."

"You just hoping?"

"It's botulism," House said. "Has to be."

"But it's none of the existing strains!"

"Get some grad students to do a mouse assay to confirm," House said, hoisting himself off the floor. "Tell them it's either strain C or D."

"But those only affect animals," Chase argued.

"I know." House stalked off, file still in his hand. He headed to his patient's room.

She laid on the bed, unanswering. Her breathing was okay but her eyes drooped and her pupils were dilated, both signs of extreme facial paralysis. He pried her eyelids open, watched her eyes attempt to focus on him. Good, she was fully conscious. "You're not crazy," he said. "You have a form of botulism poisoning only found in animals. When you got shot you probably landed badly and dirt got in your bullet wounds. Botulism bacteria live in the soil. It's been festering there ever since but the toxin only affects you fully when you're a wolf, which is why it's taken so long to start killing you. Antibiotics to kill the bacteria, supportive care until you break down the toxin, you'll be fine. You can go back to blowing down houses in no time."

He didn't expect an answer. He wasn't disappointed.

-00000-

"The first ever case of _C. Botulinum_ Toxin C affecting a human being," Wilson said. "And you can't ever publish it. Shame."

"Why not?" Masters demanded. The diagnostics office was its usual level of boredom-related activities. Masters was trying to draft a paper out of the very case they'd finished, Taub was doing paperwork, Chase was doing crosswords, and Foreman was reading a journal. House capped it all with his portable TV and that day's episode of _Prescription Passion_.

"Patient's a werewolf," House said.

"Patient isn't a werewolf," Foreman said, sick and tired of hearing about this. He sincerely hoped they could just discharge the woman and drop the whole debate. "There is No. Such. Thing."

"Patient's still a werewolf," House countered. "Reality is that which doesn't go away when you stop believing in it."

"Maybe the bacterium has evolved," Masters suggested, grasping at straws. "Maybe it was producing more than one form of the toxin."

"And it never showed up on any of the tests?" House asked. "Right."

Masters pouted and threw her pen at the table.

The office door opened. Winifred came in. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" she asked.

"Not at all," House said.

"Not a werewolf," Foreman muttered.

'I've been discharged," she said, coming closer. She smiled when Wilson backed away from her. He smelled… unsure. The others smelled afraid. But House…

"I know," House said.

"I wanted to thank you for saving my life," she said, coming closer still. She reached out for his hand. He shrugged and gave it to her, not knowing what to expect.

"I wanted to… give you something," she said. She pulled his wrist closer, was delighted when he didn't pull away.

She fixed his wrist in an iron grip and yanked it to her mouth. She bit down, hard.

The office erupted in activity. Shouts of "Oh my god!" and calls for security rang out from the fellows. Wilson grabbed for the woman and tried to pull her away from House. She growled and shook him off, eliciting a cry of pain from House as teeth tore deeper into his flesh and blood flowed. Wilson tried again, this time yanking her off of him. She growled and snapped at Wilson.

"Stop," House snapped. He cradled his bitten arm, could feel every beat of his heart throbbing in each gouge through his flesh.

Winifred licked her lips, tasting the blood there. She closed her eyes and whined, sounding for all the world like a contented wolf. "You taste good, Dr. House," she said. "Let me go."

"Are you kidding?" Wilson demanded.

Chase ran back in with security.

"This woman just assaulted Dr. House," Wilson said.

"All I did was bite him," Winifred said. Her attempt at innocence was thwarted by how she kept licking at the blood on her lips. "I won't do it again."

"It's okay," House said, waving the security guard away. He glared at the guard until he backed off, was not surprised when the guard never actually left.

"Something to remember me by," she said. "I know you'll enjoy it." She shook a disturbed Wilson off and left the office, the security guard following very closely.

"Make sure she leaves hospital grounds," Wilson called after the guard. He gave House the weirdest look. "House…" He tried to say something, could only move his hands in an attempt to find words to say. There were none.

"This is what happens when you humor crazy people," Foreman said, addressing Masters.

"Someone who thinks they're a werewolf bites you in some sort of twisted gratitude for saving their life?" Masters asked, feeling ill.

"Exactly," Foreman said.

Wilson checked House's wrist. He could pick out each tear caused by each tooth. She'd gotten close to some tendons and torn open a muscle. This would definitely scar. "You've got some real damage," Wilson said. "You're lucky it's your left wrist. C'mon, let's get you to the ER."

House sighed and followed Wilson to the ER, ignoring the scared, disturbed, and annoyed fellows he left in the office.

Odd, other than the throbbing it didn't hurt.

-00000-

"A patient _bit_ you?" Cuddy demanded.

House rolled his eyes. The ER doctor was cleaning the wound as Wilson looked on and Cuddy attempted to verbally flay him for his stupidity.

"He didn't pull away," Wilson said, still disturbed.

"You _let_ a patient bite you?" Cuddy demanded. "Are you crazy?"

"No more than normal," House snapped.

"I can get you something for the pain," the ER doctor offered.

"It doesn't hurt," House said.

"How does that not hurt?" Wilson demanded. "Check for nerve damage."

House sighed, tried to ignore the demanding chatter of his two friends. Instead he found himself poked over and over with a damned needle, having to put up with random inquiries of "Can you feel this?"

Finally House yanked his hand out of the ER doctor's grip. "There's no nerve damage," he snapped. "I'm fine!"

"You're not fine, you just got bitten by a werewolf!" Wilson shouted.

The ER mysteriously quieted down as people paused in their activities to look at their spectacle. Wilson blushed, pinched the bridge of his nose in extreme frustration.

"There's no such thing," Cuddy said.

"The woman who bit me was diagnosed with clinical lycanthropy almost a decade ago," House said. "She thinks she's a werewolf."

Wilson pointed at House. "**He** thinks she's a werewolf."

"Are you crazy?" Cuddy demanded.

"It was the simplest explanation for her case," House said, ignoring their anger.

"He's as crazy as she is!" Wilson said, throwing his hands up in the air.

"I never said I was a werewolf," House pointed out.

"And now you've been bitten by one," Wilson countered. "A hundred bucks says you'll end up going through some weird psychosomatic thing where you think you're one too."

House snorted. "Fine," he agreed. "Easy money."

"I'm with Wilson on this one," Cuddy said. "Just… keep your weird out of my hospital."

House waved her away, was amused when dismissing her worked.

Wilson sat on the gurney next to House, ignoring the ER doctor as he worked to bandage the wound. "I'm worried about you, House," he said.

"There's nothing to worry about," House said. "I'll be fine. Nothing's going to happen."

-00000-

He ran through the tall grass, dew kissing his face in the darkness of night. He crouched low, hiding from the light of the moon as he stalked his prey. He sniffed the air, smelled the musk of a mule deer buck. It was alone, tired, careless. It was close, very close…

He bolted out of the grass at a full sprint, laughed as the deer looked up and saw its doom. It started to run away, a futile effort as he leaped, landed on it back. He grabbed for its neck with his mouth, crunched into its spine. The deer went down and he arched back to give an echoing howl of triumph…

House jolted awake. He was in his office. What a vivid dream…

He felt eyes staring at him. Taub and Chase were at the conference table, both of them staring at him. Taub held out his hand and Chase pulled out some bills, slapped them into Taub's palm. House looked at them in confusion.

"You were dreaming," Taub explained. "Loudly."

House grumped, ignored them. The details of his dream were fading, leaving nothing more than the beautiful feeling of being able to run. It was a feeling he longed for but could only capture in cherished dreams.

-00000-

"You owe me a hundred bucks, House," Wilson said. He'd invaded the diagnostics office again once he heard about the dream.

"No I don't," House countered. "I don't think I'm turning into a werewolf."

Taub snorted. Chase demanded his money back.

"Is that why you were howling in your sleep?" Wilson asked. "Waving your hands like you were running on widdle paws." He mocked House further by waving his own hands in front of him like overly cute dog-paddling.

"Oh my god, that's so cute!" Masters said.

House growled, a deep animal growl. The room went quiet and stared. Even Foreman stopped his attempting to ignore the crazy and stared at it.

It took a moment before House realized the room was quiet, a moment more to realize he was growling. He stopped, couldn't hide the shocked look on his face. He got up and headed for the balcony.

Wilson followed, leaning on the balcony edge next to House. "I think this has gotten very real for you," Wilson said.

"I didn't even know I was doing it," House admitted.

"I know."

"What's happening to me?"

"I think that woman may have been carrying something and you were exposed," Wilson admitted. "From what she told you, you have to assume she was living like an animal at least some of the time. We need to treat that as an animal bite."

House unwrapped the bandages on his arm. The bite didn't look infected. It didn't even look angry. "It never even hurt," he said, mind drifting. "After she let go the pain went away. It's not nerve damage, it just… doesn't hurt."

"That alone is worrying," Wilson said. "We need to get you started on the rabies vaccine."

"If it's rabies then she's already dead," House realized. "But she showed zero symptoms of rabies."

"But you are," Wilson said. "Unless you're going to tell me clinical lycanthropy is communicable by bite."

House shuddered. She said it was a gift. Whatever this really was, it was turning into some twisted gift.

-00000-

The moon was full again, full and bigger than he'd ever seen it in his life. It hung low in the sky, casting black shadows all through the forest. His eyes were woefully inadequate, stabbed by the bright and lost in the dark. His ears were filled with a ringing rush, the sound of silence. He was alone.

This was not where he was supposed to be.

A soft growl pierced the ringing in his ears. He turned around to face it, felt his blood run cold at the sight of the wolf. It growled and crouched down, ready to strike.

The perspective changed. Suddenly he was crouched on the forest floor in front of himself. The night was suddenly clear as day, the air full of sound. He could smell the man's fear, could see the blue of his eyes, could hear his heart pounding. The man couldn't run…

He leaped forward, going for the throat.

House woke up with a scream.

Orange light from the street lamp shone through his bedroom window, obscuring anything the feeble moon could possibly shine. The bedsheets were damp with sweat and the stench of his own fear. House collapsed back onto his pillows and curled up in the blankets. He hated to admit it but Wilson was right. This **was** affecting him much more than he'd thought it would.

-00000-

House's office was empty, devoid of fellows as they scurried about the hospital on their various tasks and errands. He had no case, his leg wasn't bothering him, he had his music, it was turning out to be a good day.

A delivery guy came in holding a box. "Delivery for Dr. Gregory House," he said.

"Right here," House said, not getting up from his desk.

The delivery man handed him the clipboard to sign, photographed the signature and the box.

"Important?" House asked. He wasn't used to the mail needing to be photographed on delivery.

"I'm supposed to confirm and document delivery, sir." He handed House the box. "Have a nice day."

House looked the box over, noticed something. "Hey, there's no return address," he complained.

"Not my problem, I just deliver it." The delivery guy left.

House shook the box gently, heard nothing. It was rather light for its size, almost as big as a file box. Somebody had gone through quite some trouble to get this to him. And no return address…

Probably not a bomb. A bomb would be heavier. An anthrax letter would be, well, a letter. Something radioactive would be heavy and wouldn't be handled by the post office. He wasn't expecting anything…

He sat it on his desk, contemplated it.

Chase walked in. He wore House's labcoat and nametag. "Got caught," he reported. "Cuddy says you have to do your own clinic hours."

"If she didn't want the help today she should have just said so," House said, distracted. He was still examining the box.

"Mail?" Chase asked.

"No return address, delivered with extreme accuracy. Too light for a bomb, too big to be full of white powder."

"Think someone's angry at you?" Chase asked.

House gave him an 'are you kidding' look before going back to contemplating the box. The mystery was delightful but too easy to solve. All he had to do was open it and then he could focus on the better mystery of who sent it, why, and what it meant.

The amount of packing tape on the box was insane. Good thing he kept a scalpel in his desk. Even so, every single crease and corner of the box was completely sealed with tape.

"Should you even be opening that?" Chase asked. "What if something goes wrong?"

"Then it's a good thing we're at a hospital, isn't it?" House said. He opened the box.

"What is it?" Chase asked.

House sat silent, transfixed by the beautiful fur lovingly rolled up in the box. Stiff gray guard hairs protected a feather-soft brown-gray undercoat. Guard hairs grew thicker and more numerous down the middle, along where the spine of the animal would have been. He petted the fur, felt it almost tingle against his fingers.

He needed to feel more of it.

He pulled the fur out of the box and let it unfurl into his lap.

"Is that a fur?" Chase asked, confused. "Why would anyone send you a fur?"

House didn't answer, barely even registered that Chase had spoken. It wasn't important. What was important was in his hands. The guard hairs formed a ruff around the fur's neck that extended down the spine like the ruff on a tiger. Whoever skinned this animal was a master; every feature was preserved, from the ears to the toes.

"House?"

The bite wound on his wrist itched. He absently scratched at it before sliding the forelimb of the fur over the still-healing wound, as if he were putting the skin on. He gasped, enchanted by the feeling. It was as though he could _wear_ this fur as his skin…

"House. You there?"

…this wolf fur…

"House!"

A hand gripped his shoulder and shook. House snapped out of his reverie, realized he was in his office fondling the skin of a dead animal. Chase looked at him warily, holding him at arm's length like he'd gone nuts.

"You okay?" Chase asked.

"What?" House wondered, coming back to himself. "I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

"You went all queer on me for a moment there," Chase said. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I said I'm fine," House snapped. He rolled the fur back up, much more lovingly than he realized, and placed it back in its box. "Inform whoever comes in here that anyone who touches that is dead."

"If you're worried it might have some sort of contagion we could test it," Chase suggested.

"Including you," House warned. "**Any**one. No testing, no touching, don't even breathe on it." He stepped out onto the balcony to hop the wall before Cuddy came by to drag him to the clinic.

Wilson's balcony door was unlocked.

"With a patient, House," Wilson said the moment the balcony door opened.

"It's cancer," House said, deadpanned, taking in the scene. Wilson sat behind his desk, a man and a woman in front. The woman looked distraught and scandalized at his entrance, the man looked confused and angry.

"Will you excuse me a moment?" Wilson asked, annoyed. House found himself shoved out onto the balcony, the door locked behind him. Wilson mouthed 'five minutes' at him before shutting the blinds.

House stood on the balcony, cold and impatient. Through the glass doors he could see the box under his desk, untouched and alone. It made him feel better, somehow, to know no one was messing with his skin. One thing he couldn't understand, though, was why he felt so attached to it. He'd just gotten it. In the mail. Completely random. There was no reason why-

A memory flashed to his mind. A dream, yet another disturbing dream. He put… something… on and the dream changed. Everything was different. He remembered the night as bright as day, standing on the roof of the hospital, raising his head back and-

Oh shit. The sight of Cuddy in his office snapped him out of memory, made him duck down to avoid being seen.

The balcony door to his office opened. "I know you're there, House," Cuddy said. "Give up and stop hiding."

House unwrapped a lollipop and started sucking on it. He held the stick in his teeth like a cigar. "You'll never take me alive, Copper," he swore, trying to talk like a 1920's mobster.

"House," Cuddy warned. "You were due in the clinic two hours ago."

"I sent the wombat down, see; you're the one who sent him back. Not my fault if you're turning down staff."

"I'm not letting you send your staff to do your hours for you, House."

"You're a terrible negotiator, Cuddy." The blinds pulled back in Wilson's office. House grinned at his friend, inviting him to join the fun.

"Don't make me come over there," Cuddy said.

Wilson opened the balcony door.

House jumped up, nearly falling into Wilson's arms as his leg protested. Instead he grabbed Wilson and wrapped one arm around his neck. "I have a hostage, Cuddy," House said, grinning like an idiot.

"I thought you were going to be the hostage this time," Wilson complained.

"Quiet, you. I have your star oncologist, see. Send Taub to negotiate, you suck at it." He managed to drag Wilson back into the office and closed the balcony door before Wilson started giggling like a loon.

"She's gonna kill us," he warned.

"She'll never take us alive," House said, holding his lollipop like a cigar. "She'll cave. She always does."

"We need hats," Wilson mused.

"We need tommy guns," House countered.

There was a knock on the door. House tried to get up, realized his cane was still on the balcony. Damn.

Wilson checked the blinds then opened the door.

"What's the password?" House asked.

Taub's face was schooled into careful neutrality ruined by a guilty look in his eyes.

House grew suspicious at that guilt, glanced out at the balcony where Cuddy had jumped the wall and was holding his cane. The moment where he watched dumbfounded was all she needed to hop back over the wall and into the diagnostics office. House turned his eyes back to Taub.

"Good move," House allowed. "Take him."

Taub looked around, suddenly realizing Wilson stood between him and the door. It closed ominously. He was trapped. "I'm not sure this is fair," he said.

"Fair, shmair," House droned, falling back to the mobster's accent. "We gots us a stoolie, Wilson." He crunched his lollipop. "Whats you say we do wit 'im?"

"I was set up," Taub said quickly, worried about where this was going.

"They gots yer gal hostage," Wilson said, trying to mimic the accent. "She loves ya, House. She won't sing. But this bird…"

"Guys?" Taub said, nervous.

"Since when is my cane my 'gal'?" House asked, falling out of character.

"It was all I could think of!" Wilson defended. "I'm telling you, we need hats."

"If you need a hat to be a good mobster then you never were one in the first place."

Taub just looked confused and like he was trying not to laugh.

The chorus of "Dancing Queen" drifted up from Wilson's pants. Wilson tossed House the phone.

"You left your phone in your office, House," Cuddy said as a greeting.

"Say what yer gonna say, Copper," House said, putting the phone on speaker.

"House… All I want, for _once_, is for you to do your clinic hours without having to deal with antics like this."

"I sent the wombat," House defended. "Who cares, really, who gets the clinic hours done so long as they get done? Unless, of course, who staffs the clinic is more important than keeping it staffed. You sayin' the wombat ain't good enough? That's what it is, Jimmy, she's sayin the wombat ain't good enough!"

"Yeah," Wilson agreed. "That's it. The wombat ain't good enough. The coppers want a patsy and the wombat ain't good enough."

"We gots their stoolie," House said, smug. "Ya hear that, Copper? We gots yer stoolie. You ever want to see me in the clinic again you gotta give up the cane or the stoolie gets it, see?"

"I am going to give you so many clinic hours for this," Cuddy warned. "Both of you. All three of you!"

"You sent me here to get captured!" Taub protested.

"See? The coppers deserted ya," House said. "They took you for a patsy, see? They sold you out, see?"

"This isn't fair, Cuddy," Taub complained. "You want to punish House, fine. You want to punish me for letting you use me as a distraction, that's going too far."

"You got any hats?" Wilson asked.

-00000-

House had to admit, sometimes Cuddy played fair. All through the 'hostage situation' in Wilson's office she never touched or threatened his fur. His cane, sure. His vicodin, of course. His stash of cherry lollipops, admittedly that **was** dirty pool on her part. But not the fur. He was able to get the fur home without incident.

The fur was laid out on the bed, stretched out like a rug. It was a huge fur, longer from nose to tail than House was tall. It had to have stood almost three feet at the shoulder. All of its fur layers were intact, something preliminary research had told him couldn't happen through the tanning process. But the skin was artfully tanned, very soft. It couldn't have been softer if it were still warm.

He sat on the bed next to the fur, ran his hands down its back. Stiff guard hairs tickled his hands, provided a pleasing contrast to the wiry midcoat and the thick, downy undercoat.

There was a knock on the door. House snapped out of his reverie to realize he had his shirt off and his hands were in the middle of undoing his belt. He had no memory of taking off his clothes.

House slowly redid his belt and grabbed a t-shirt. He stared warily at the fur as though it was the cause. He swore for a moment he remember the animal who wore this fur, something from a dream…

The door knocked again.

"Gimme a minute," House snapped, muffled by the t-shirt as he got tangled trying to pull it on. One last yank and he was dressed. He pulled the door open.

Wilson stood at the door, bag of take-out balanced in one arm, his key held ready to unlock the door.

"You went all the way to 'B Chinese'?" House asked, letting him in. He could smell the pork fried rice and the very specific oil blend they used to fry it. It struck him suddenly that he shouldn't be able to do that.

"How'd you know?" Wilson asked, setting the bag on the counter.

"I… think I can smell it," House admitted.

Wilson looked at him like he was nuts before ignoring it and going back to pulling take-out containers out of the bag.

Each container had its own smell, very strong smells of garlic, sauces, onions, spice, and meats. They muddled together into one riotous assault on his senses, their combined volume dulling his ability to pick any one smell out of the bunch. He limped to the couch and hid in its comforting stench of himself, old beer, dust, and Wilson.

Wilson handed him the carton of kung-pow and a fork. "You okay?" Wilson asked.

House shook his head, poking at his food. Every prod released another cloud of smell that enveloped him, burrowed into his head and made it ache. "What causes the sense of smell to increase?" he asked.

"How much of an increase?" Wilson asked, twirling lo mein around his fork.

"Enough to go from standard background to being able to pick out the oil blend used to fry the rice sitting in a box at five paces," House described.

"How fast was the increase?"

"Between when I got home and when you showed up, so, less than half an hour." House picked a chunk of chicken out of the kung-pow and sniffed it experimentally. He cringed. He could smell what part of the chicken it was from, the corn starch breading, the fry oil, the spices, the peanuts, the vegetables, it all coalesced into one screaming note. He touched it to his tongue.

At least that wasn't bad. In fact it tasted _better_ than usual, stronger, more like itself. He dug into his box, trying not to smell it.

"Could be a tumor," Wilson suggested. "We should get you an MRI."

"You're an oncologist, of course it's a tumor."

"Unless it really is rabies," Wilson said, softly. He didn't want to think of the possibility.

"Rabies doesn't affect the sense of smell," House snapped. It wasn't rabies. "There have been no flu-like symptoms, no more pain than usual, no photophobia, no nothing." He couldn't look at Wilson, didn't want him to know he was hiding nightmares and night sweats; those **were** rabies symptoms.

Wilson could tell House was hiding something. That fact made his blood run cold. "What symptoms have you had?" he asked, quiet and afraid.

"Dreams," House admitted. "Very vivid dreams. Almost every time I close my eyes."

"What else?" Wilson asked.

"I blacked out today. I got this fur in the mail today and I have no idea why. It's a complete wolf pelt, I think, but it's larger than any wolf I've ever… seen. In life, anyway. I have seen a wolf that big. In fact, I've seen that exact wolf."

"In a dream?" Wilson asked.

House nodded. "I had it spread out on the bed and was admiring it and then…" He took a breath before continuing. "And then the next thing I knew I was half-undressed with this… burning need to put the fur on."

"Do you know what brought you out of that episode?" Wilson asked.

"You knocked on the door," House said.

"It's still here?" Wilson realized.

House got up and limped to the bedroom. He beckoned Wilson in. "Don't touch it," he warned.

Wilson followed House to the bedroom and paused at the sight. Stretched out on the bed was a wolf pelt, soft and furry. Its paws and tail dangled off the sides and end of the bed, it was so huge.

"Wolves don't get that big," House said.

Wilson shook his head. No, they didn't.

"I feel like I could put it on," House said, the craving to feel the fur on his skin rising. "Like I should put it on. Like it's mine…" He trailed off.

The naked want in his friend's eyes scared Wilson on some primal level.

"House," Wilson said, trying to pull his attention back to the real world. "House. Listen to me. You can't give in to it."

"I want to," House realized.

"No, House, you don't," Wilson pleaded. "If you do you'll be different. You won't be yourself anymore."

"How do you know?" House demanded. "Where do you get off telling me what I can and cannot do?"

"Someone has to!"

"You don't even know it'll do anything!"

Wilson tried to say something to that, realized he couldn't. "You're right, I don't," he admitted. "But something tells me that thing is bad, House. That as soon as you put it on you'll change and you won't ever change back. Not really. You'll be different."

"Now you're the one who sounds crazy," House pointed out.

"I want to do an MRI," Wilson said. "I want you to get your team on this. Maybe it's something we can fix. I don't want you to change."

The fur called to him again. He remembered a dream, being the wolf that stalked himself. "And if I cave?" House asked. "And if I change despite all my best efforts?"

"No matter what happens, I'll be there for you," Wilson said.

House nodded. He ran his hand down the fur, his skin tingling where hairs touched it. He wanted to put it on so much he could _taste_ it.

-00000-

"New case," House said the moment he entered the office.

The fellows put away what they were doing with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Foreman looked interested in a real case this time, Chase was grateful for the break in crossword monotony, Taub looked forward to watching House work, and Masters was still fretting over her test score.

"Aww, did someone not get a perfect score?" House mocked. "You fail half my tests, does the pen-and-paper version make that much difference?"

"Yes," she said, not missing a beat. "With these tests I can argue for a better A."

"Your TAs must adore you," House said, sarcasm dripping from every word. Masters pouted and put her test away.

"Increased sense of smell, compulsions, vivid dreams, and blackouts," House said, writing his symptoms on the board. "Go."

"No other information?" Taub asked.

"Sounds neurological," Foreman said. "Sense of smell gives us a probable location. We should rule out tumors."

"No file?" Chase asked.

"No file," House said.

"We need an MRI," Masters said. "Unless we don't really have access to the patient."

"Now, why wouldn't we have access to the patient?" House asked, managing to sound both condescending and innocent.

Masters pouted but didn't say anything.

"Any other information at all?" Taub asked again.

The one downside to using his team as a sounding board for brainstorming. House wrote 'bitten by a werewolf' on the list of symptoms.

"No such thing," Foreman said.

"You were bitten by that one patient," Chase said, connecting the dots. "The one with clinical lycanthropy. The one who thought she was a werewolf."

Masters looked shocked then concerned. "Dr. House, are you having these symptoms?"

"It's that pelt," Chase said, jumping to the obvious. "You should have let me test it."

"Pelt?" Masters asked.

"Someone sent House what looked like a wolf pelt yesterday. That's when it started, isn't it? You have to get rid of that pelt."

House went rigid. "I am not getting rid of my fur," he said, quiet and dangerous.

"But aren't wolves endangered?" Masters asked. "Isn't that illegal?"

"Look, we'll send someone to get rid of it for you," Chase promised. "You won't know who and you won't have to be there. Just tell us where it-"

House moved faster than anyone thought he could, faster than **he** thought he could. He cut Chase off by grabbing him around the neck and slamming him into the glass wall of the conference room. The glass miraculously held, vibrating ominously for a few moments as the entire room stared in shock.

House bared his teeth and growled. He held Chase against the wall with one hand.

Chase gasped. Being thrown against the wall knocked the wind out of him. He resisted the urge to grasp at the hand holding him there, instead focused on not pissing his pants.

"You stink of fear," House whispered. The room was so quiet it felt like a shout. "If you touch my fur I will tear you limb from limb. Is that understood?"

Chase nodded.

House let him go. "And shower after having sex," he scolded. "You stink of female. It's distracting."

He limped to a chair, leg screaming at him for his actions. He fell into the chair, no idea where his cane went. "Do your scans," he said. "But know that if anyone touches my fur I'll know. I'll smell it on you. And if I find my fur damaged in any way I will rend whoever touched it. Even Wilson."

A collective gulp ricocheted around the room.

-00000-

"There's that," Masters said, pointing out another spot.

"That was there before," Foreman said, looking it over. Wilson and the team were pouring over House's MRI results without finding anything. Well, nothing new.

"What about this?" she asked, finding a patch of scar tissue.

"Deep brain stimulation right after a skull fracture," Chase explained. "Ended up in a coma. There is nothing here to explain the sudden change."

"His white matter is all over the place," Taub observed. "Look at this patterning. Completely abnormal."

"And yet, it's nothing new," Foreman mused.

"It's not cancer," Wilson concluded. "You're saying he threw Chase against the wall, growled like an animal, and then threatened all of you?"

"Including you," Masters pointed out. "Well, anyone who touched that fur of his. But he mentioned you by name."

-00000-

House was hiding out in the recovery room after the MRI. He still wore the hospital gown but at least Wilson had brought his clothes and his backpack without question. The backpack sat open by his feet, its contents sitting in his lap. House stroked the fur, contemplating what it meant, why he had it.

What if that woman really was a werewolf? He'd seen much growing up in the slums of the world, crawling in and out of ruins and the cultures that still called them home. Revolutions came and went, governments rose and fell, but the culture, the _power_ stayed. He'd never be able to explain half of what he'd seen in those dark places of the world. The only thing he could be sure of was that no god was responsible for what he saw. What he'd learned was true. What he'd been taught…

The door opened. Wilson stood there, gave House a cautious look.

Only then did House realize he'd stripped the hospital gown off and was in the middle of laying the fur over himself to wear it. House cleared his throat and put the fur down. "It's not cancer," he predicted.

"You… just had a blackout, didn't you?" Wilson asked.

House didn't answer.

"Before I walked in, what's the last thing you remember?"

"I was dressed, for one," he admitted. "I was thinking about Japan."

"What about Japan?" Wilson asked.

"Ever hear about the kitsune?"

"The what?"

"Foxes," House described. "The kitsune is a spirit, a fox. It can possess people, take the form of a human, perform magic, even talk. As they grow more powerful they get more tails, learn to fly. I was thinking about Japan. And the day I saw a five-tailed fox. What if werewolves are real, Wilson?"

"They're not," Wilson promised. "Get dressed, House. There's no sign of any neurological issue that would explain your symptoms. Your scans are as clean as they're going to get." He stayed in the recovery room to make sure House got dressed okay. These blackouts were serious, especially if they were causing House to start believing in legends.

-00000-

Modern legend said all it took was the bite from a werewolf, simple exchange of bodily fluids. It spread like a virus, transmitted through saliva and sexual fluids. Modern legends could be traced seventy years back to one source, _The Wolfman_. The same source as the werewolf's vulnerability to silver, its reliance on the full moon. Most of modern legend was traceable to that one movie.

As legends got older the method for becoming a werewolf grew more and more complex. Drugs, a complex brew similar or maybe equivalent to the flight potion of Middle Ages witchcraft. An enchanted wolf-skin belt in the Early Modern era, simplified from the entire enchanted fur from the Middle Ages.

An enchanted fur…

House looked up from his computer at the backpack he carried everywhere now. He knew what was inside.

But was it enchanted? Did the bite mean anything? Did he really treat a werewolf? Was it all real?

There was only one way to find out.

House unbuttoned his shirt, let it fall. His t-shirt came next followed by his shoes, socks, belt and pants. Boxers were the last to go.

Maybe it was all in his head. Maybe Wilson was right. Maybe the bite triggered something psychosomatic. Maybe he just really wanted it to be real.

But what if…

House pulled the fur out of his backpack. It unfurled, almost as though it anticipated this. As if it wanted to be worn. He draped the fur over his shoulders, aligning the head and limbs exactly.

He didn't feel any different. He felt kind of silly, actually.

And then he didn't.

-00000-

The full moon lit Wilson's way as he trudged his way up to 221B. He carried a pizza in one arm, a case of beer in the other. House had been feeling weird ever since the bite. He'd been acting weird, too, even weirder as the full moon got closer. Well, tonight was the night of that full moon and Wilson felt House shouldn't be alone. He needed to be distracted from whatever his mind was going to be putting him through.

And he wasn't answering the door.

"Hands are full, House," Wilson shouted. Strange. Still no sound from within. Maybe House wasn't there, maybe something was wrong. Wilson sighed, put on a long-suffering expression for when House opened the door right before he got his keys out.

It didn't work. Odd. House usually had impeccable timing.

"House?" Wilson called, worry overriding everything else. Beer went to the ground and he dug his keys out. He got the door open.

The room was empty. Empty and very dark, lit only by the backlight of a computer screen and the moonlight streaming through the curtains.

"House?" Wilson called, stepping inside. Beer and pizza went to the counter. "House, you here?"

Something under the piano bench moved.

"House?" Wilson asked, fear causing all his hair to stand on-end. "Please tell me that's you."

The thing moved from under the piano bench to the far side of the couch. It didn't move like anything human…

Wilson fumbled for the light switch. The room brightened. He scooted over to the couch and looked over it.

Wilson nodded then turned away. He turned back. Nope, still there. He'd gone crazy. Had to be. "This is a hallucination," he decided aloud. There was no way in any hell a wolf could possibly be hiding behind House's couch. Especially not a brown-gray wolf with bright blue eyes.

Wilson let himself take in the rest of the room. The computer was open to something on really old werewolf legends. Clothes were scattered around the room. House's cane was leaning against the dining room table. His shoes were right there. The only thing missing was House himself.

"I'm hallucinating you," Wilson said, looking down at the wolf. The wolf looked up at him, blinked its bright blue eyes. So much like House's eyes. That's how he knew this was a hallucination. Because otherwise…

He didn't want to think about otherwise.

Wilson went to the kitchen and got out two plates. He served up two slices of pizza and went to the couch. One plate went to the coffee table, one he kept for himself. "Your pizza's getting cold, House," Wilson called.

The wolf stood up, wagged its tail. Wilson marveled at its size, fear bleeding through the solid wall of denial he'd built around himself. The wolf was **huge**. It had to stand almost three feet at the shoulder and must have been more than six feet long from tip to tail. He couldn't tell for sure; it kept wagging its tail. It limped (limped? oh please no…) over to him and put its massive head on his lap. It pricked its ears up and looked at him, almost expectant.

"You're a hallucination," Wilson said, sticking with denial. Despite this he realized his hand was moving almost without permission to rub the wolf behind its ears. It made a contented sound and its tail wagged.

"Stop distracting me," he scolded. "You can eat the pizza over there. It'll still be there when House gets back, you being a hallucination and all." By now Wilson was trying desperately to convince himself that this wasn't House. All he needed was to find out the wolf was limping because of a scar…

Oh no…

Wilson's heart fell to his stomach when he saw the angry scar in the wolf's right thigh. Almost like…

And to top it all off, it was undeniably an un-neutered male.

"I'm either hallucinating or I'm crazy," Wilson decided. "So I'm just going to sit here and enjoy my pizza and watch House's TV. And get a beer. You want a beer?" He realized after he'd said it that he was talking to what was essentially a hallucination of a mythical creature that was acting like a big friendly dog. When the wolf popped its head over the back of the couch and nodded yes-I-want-a-beer Wilson let go of a few broken giggles, the hysterical squeaking of a brain gone mad. He got a bowl from the cabinet and two beers. One beer was poured into the bowl and set on the coffee table while the giant wolf climbed awkwardly onto the couch and started gnawing on its own slice of pizza.

Wilson collapsed on the couch next to the wolf and tried not to feel warm fur pressed against his side, to hear animal lapping at the bowl of beer, to think that this might be a werewolf and he might be in very real danger. Instead his shell-shocked little mind had him grab the remote and try to find something sane to anchor him in this world.

It wasn't working.

An unknowable amount of time passed staring into whatever flickering lights the TV offered, drinking almost nonstop before Wilson noticed the wolf was curled up in a ball next to him, whining. It was licking the scar on its thigh, whining in what had to be pain. It struck him that House obviously couldn't take his vicodin while he was turned into a wolf. He tamped the thought down with sheer force of denial.

"You're in pain, aren't you?" Wilson asked.

The wolf looked up at him with the saddest, most pleading pain-filled eyes he'd ever imagined. That settled it. It may be he was going to stay here all night, sitting up with a hallucination while waiting for House to stop being crazy and come home. Even so, that didn't mean he was going to make his hallucination suffer. He found House's vicodin in the nearly-empty backpack in the corner, took out one. He looked at the size of the wolf and decided on two. House would be able to handle it easy, would need it even, and you can't drug a hallucination. He held the pills out for the wolf and cringed at the slimy feeling as a huge tongue dragged all up his hand and halfway up his wrist. The wolf then went to its bowl and whined because there was no more beer. Wilson nodded and got another beer while trying to wipe the sticky, slimy feeling of drool off his hand.

"I didn't know wolves liked beer," Wilson said conversationally as the wolf drank.

He didn't bat an eye when the wolf looked back at him, shrugged, and then went back to its beer.

"I heard horses like beer," Wilson admitted. "Where did I hear that? I don't remember." The wolf stopped drinking and laid down on the couch, draping its head over Wilson's lap. It groaned in contentment.

"You're really heavy for a hallucination," Wilson observed, reaching down to scratch behind the wolf's ears. He was tired. The night had been stressful and long, the day hadn't helped much either. The wolf was warm, its furry weight almost comforting draped over his lap. Like a really big cat.

He didn't know he'd fallen asleep until he was jolted awake by an ear-splitting howl. He screamed, the night coming back to him in flashes. House. Missing. House a werewolf? No, couldn't be. A hallucination, yeah, that's right, a hallucination. There wasn't really a wolf in the window, its forepaws on the windowsill as it howled at the moon. The curtains weren't really thrown aside, moonlight brightening the room more than any puny light bulb could ever manage. The wolf wasn't arching up in near-ecstasy as it threw its head back and bayed like every romanticized nature documentary on wolves ever made.

Wilson clamped his hands over his ears and hoped the neighbors didn't call the cops or something. And then he had to laugh; of course they wouldn't hear it, it wasn't real, it was all a hallucination.

"Shut up!"

Wilson froze as he heard the shout from outside. _No…_ Wilson stood up, walked very, very slowly to the window. Lights were coming on in neighboring buildings, shouts demanding the source of the howls shut up and be quiet, demanding the owner get the dog to shut up, shouting about lack of sleep and needing to wake up in the morning.

He pulled the wolf away from the window and yanked the curtains closed. Panic began setting in again. Denial cracked. Wilson turned around slowly to face the wolf that he was beginning to realize really was there.

It picked itself off the floor from the indignant sprawl it was thrown into. It licked its leg before looking at Wilson accusingly.

"You're not a hallucination," he realized.

The wolf shook its head.

"You're real."

The wolf nodded.

Wilson needed to sit down. Right here was fine. He collapsed to the floor right where he stood, the wall the only thing propping him in a sitting position. He started to laugh, soft disbelieving giggles collapsing into hysterical laughter as denial shattered.

It couldn't possibly be true. There was no way it could be true. No single, solitary way in hell it could be true.

But it was true.

"House?" Wilson said, once he'd run out of giggles. "You're a werewolf."

House gave him the most deadpanned look Wilson had ever seen a dog attempt.

"This-this, this isn't possible! And yet you're right there! How?"

House tried to stand up, collapsed back down on his haunches with a whine of pain. He licked at his thigh to soothe the pain, was still surprised when it seemed to help. If only he could manage this as a human…

"I hurt you, didn't I?" Wilson realized. "I'm sorry. Here, let me get your vicodin."

House's ears pricked at the mention of the vicodin. He wagged his tail in encouragement.

"Did two work okay last time?" Wilson asked, popped the bottle open.

House nodded. He gratefully licked two offered pills off of Wilson's palm. He let his tongue linger, creep in between Wilson's fingers and up his wrist. Wilson tasted interesting. He tasted like his scent: male, repressed, high testosterone, fastidiously clean, and a musky tang all his own. The pills wouldn't go down, just like last time. He went to the bowl, hoping to find more beer. Bah. He lapped at the empty bowl and looked at Wilson imploringly.

"Oh, right." Wilson poured a beer for House. "There."

Beer was an indulgent taste, grains not being something the wolf's palate expected. It tasted like luxury and faintly of medicine, like grass eaten to calm an upset stomach.

"Sooo… You're not the murdering monster I expected a real werewolf to be," Wilson said, going for conversational.

House snorted into his beer. He wiped his nose with a paw and gave Wilson a look.

"I mean, what were you expecting?" Wilson paused for a moment then felt dumb. "You can't talk, can you?"

House didn't dignify that with an answer.

"Right." Wilson plopped down on the couch, almost expected it when House crawled up with him to lie draped across his lap. "So, what do we do now? I don't know about you but I'm not going to be able to sleep for a long, long time."

House looked up at Wilson and wagged his tail to make the man feel better.

"You'd better be real, House, and I mean really you otherwise I'm going insane. And I don't know which is more terrifying. Because if you're you then werewolves are real and everything we've learned over the past two hundred years about reality are… wrong. Just… all wrong. It means the at least some of the idiotic things we believed back when we were burning witches and staking vampires were _true_. That there really are things that go bump in the night. And… you're one of those things. And that terrifies me, more than being crazy would." He stroked his hand through the fur on House's chest as he spoke. There was a ridge in the wolf's chest, almost a seam where two edges of skin met. He fingered that seam.

House tried to push Wilson's hand away with a paw but he didn't quite bend that way. He tried to bend his foreleg inward enough to get Wilson's hand away from that seam…

And then he could grasp Wilson's wrist.

The fur fell away, leaving House nothing more than a naked human being wearing a wolf pelt. "I was trying to say 'don't do that'," House said.

Wilson sat, eyes wide. As fascinating as that was, he'd just watched the wolf draped across his lap shift and change, becoming his friend. His friend wearing a wolf's fur. He trembled.

"Wilson," House called. "Wilson, it's okay." He reached a hand up to press against Wilson's cheek, found his skin to be ice cold.

"It wasn't a hallucination," Wilson whispered. "You're really a werewolf."

House sat up, taking his fur with him. "Yes, I guess I am," he admitted.

"But… it's not morning," Wilson said. The full moon still hung high in the sky, sunrise many hours away.

"I don't need the moon," House allowed. "At least I don't think I do. All I need is this fur. Because it's **my** fur. I put it on and it becomes my skin, my fur. And when I take it off I'm human again."

"But then the bite… Did that do anything… Did it **mean** anything?"

"I don't know," House admitted. "But the oldest legends don't need a bite. They need a fur. Or good drugs. And I have that fur. It's the only fur I have, the only fur I ever will have. I can't let anything happen to it. I let somebody else ruin one body of mine; I don't want to lose this one too."

"How is it you're not freaking out?" Wilson demanded.

"When I was growing up I saw hijras cast curses, houngans possess themselves with loa, and once I saw a kitsune fly. In Egypt I stole away from the base and took lessons from a man who saw Anubis in his dreams and foretold the exact location of over a dozen undiscovered tombs. In Mexico I aided a woman in a ritual to remove the _mal de ojo_ from an infant using a chicken egg and fresh rosemary. Medicine knows about the _mal de ojo_; we don't call it a curse, we call it SIDS and we tell parents bullshit advice to make them feel better that in the end affects nothing. Medicine knows about werewolves, too, takes away their furs and calls it 'clinical lycanthropy'. Giants, dwarves, all known to science now. I hear there's even a branch of science trying to bridge the gap between magic and mundane. I'm not freaking out because I never had reason to. Because none of this is strictly new or unreal. It just is."

"How is it you're an atheist?" Wilson asked.

"Because given what I've seen I feel I'm more qualified to make that judgment than most," House said. "And I have yet to see proof of a single all-powerful god. I have seen a great deal of proof that says otherwise." He fingered his fur, glanced at the moon. She called to him. He really wanted to put his fur back on.

It was like coming out of the Matrix. Something in Wilson's mind tried to snap, found it had snapped long ago. He just felt empty. The entire world was wrong, a complete lie. His senses had lied to him his whole life, fed him tiny, limited information that led to him relying on science to back up his life.

This was the first real proof that science was wrong.

No, not wrong. That's what House was trying to tell him; not wrong, _incomplete_. Science had yet to explain everything. This was just something science would have to work on. Something for science to build up to. Suddenly the world opened up, fear melted away to wonder as he realized there was always going to be more, so much more. No one could ever know it all. A Universal Theory was a pipe dream. Something would always exist outside theory, outside accepted knowledge.

And _that_ was what made the world worth living in.

Wilson smiled, wondered if this was what wisdom felt like.

House saw blank, frightened stares turn to understanding. He smiled, happy for his friend. But right now there was something he had to do. He draped his fur over himself, welcomed it into his body, his soul, felt it wrap around him like the second skin it was. Perspective changed as he fell to all fours, colors dimmed and darkness brightened. Smells went from a muddled scream to individual scents. He tossed his head, relishing the feel of fur down his spine, before putting his forepaws against the windowsill and taking a deep breath.

A hand gripped his muzzle mid-howl. It died in his throat as human arms wrapped around chest and muzzle, gently pulling him off the windowsill back to the floor. "You'll wake the neighbors again," Wilson said, his voice puffing warm air right past House's ear.

House growled. Wilson laughed, not fooled by canine posturing. House gave up and relaxed into warm arms. This was nice.

He looked up at the moon and sighed. He'd sing to her another night. Right now, he was busy. Wilson was probably the only living being on the planet who could get House to do something he didn't want to do. And House was okay with that. Now more than ever.

-00000-

Masters sat down, set a tray covered in coffee cups in front of her. Three hands reached out to grab one. The team was in the cafeteria, their most recent patient on the mend. It had been a short six-hour affair, barely enough to keep House awake for some reason.

"Okay, tell me an interesting case," she said, using free coffee as leverage.

Taub and Chase shrugged. They'd supplied the previous round of stories.

"There was the guy with no personality," Foreman offered.

"So… he was boring?" Masters asked, disappointed.

"No, he literally had no personality and no memory. He'd take on the personality, the opinions, even the memories of the most dominant person in the room."

"Usually House," Taub muttered.

"Only usually? And how do you know it was House?"

"House made sure we all ended up alone with the guy," Foreman described. "He wanted us to see who we really were or something like that. Trust me, it was always House."

"No, once it wasn't House," Taub said. "I don't think you were there for that one."

"It wasn't Cuddy, he tested that and then lorded the results over her for weeks," Chase said.

"The guy wandered into surgery," Taub described. "House tried to dom his way into taking control of the guy but he couldn't. He just couldn't match Wilson."

"Wilson?" Masters said with a laugh.

"Don't knock it," Chase warned.

"Even Darth Vader followed Grand Moff Tarkin's orders," Taub said. And then realized how much of a nerd he sounded. The others were looking at him like he had two heads. "What?"

"Very brave of you," Masters said, patting his arm. "Not everyone has the courage to come out as a nerd."

Chase snorted his coffee.

"So who was the best _Star Trek_ captain?" Foreman asked, hiding his amusement behind his cup.

"Picard," Taub said without hesitation.

"Janeway," Masters said. Then realized she'd been set up.

"I'm not the only nerd," Taub said, grinning.

"You're all nerds," Wilson said. He'd just finished his rounds for the day and had come to the cafeteria for a short break and a sandwich. He stood next to their table, tray in hand.

"Says the man with Hitchcock posters on his office wall," Foreman accused.

"You don't hear me denying it," Wilson admitted. "Where's House?"

"He said he was going to the roof," Masters said. "Coffee?" She offered him an untouched cup.

The roof… Couldn't be, he'd spent all last night as… "He take his backpack with him to the roof?" Wilson asked.

The fellows looked confused. "As a matter of fact, he did," Chase said. "Why, is it important?"

A faint howl echoed through the cafeteria. Wilson resisted the urge to drop his head in his hands. "Yes," Wilson said, deadpanned. He put his tray down. "I'll be back." He stormed off.

"That was weird," Masters said. "Did you hear that?"

"House doing something dumb again?" Taub asked. "I gathered that, yes."

"No, not that," Masters said. "It sounded like a wolf howl."

"You imagined it," Foreman said.

As if to prove him wrong there was another howl. The cafeteria went quiet this time, conversation starting back up as the howl ended, conversation dominated by confusion and speculation.

"I didn't imagine that," Masters said. "You don't think…"

"Of course not," Foreman said.

"Even if it's just psychosomatic…" Taub said, trailing off.

"That's not a human voice," Masters said, getting scared.

"Stop it, both of you," Foreman snapped.

"I'll go, ah, check," Chase said, getting up. "Just to make sure."

"You're all gullible morons," Foreman scolded. He resolutely ignored the fact that he sounded like House.

"Have fun with that," Chase said. He left a fuming Foreman with a confused Taub and a panicking Masters.

-00000-

The door to the roof stood open. Chase moved cautiously, quietly, trying to avoid being noticed by whomever or _whatever_ was up here. He shook himself for being paranoid.

And then let the paranoia flow freely when a powerful howl echoed down the stairwell from that open door.

The howl was cut off by a strangled whine and a man's voice.

"Are you trying to get yourself caught?"

_Wilson_. What was Wilson doing up on the roof? Wasn't House supposed to be up here? What on earth could possibly make such an unearthly wail? Chase pushed his way past the open door to the cool night air on the roof.

He looked down and his blood ran cold. _Shoes_… Someone had left a shoe right in front of the door. Another one was over there, followed by socks. There was a… trail of clothing…

He recognized that clothing.

Something ahead was growling. Chase ducked behind a vent outlet to listen.

"Don't give me that," Wilson scolded. "You're the one who claimed the moon had no affect on you. I'm not letting you yodel your fool head off on the damned roof!"

The… animal yowled. Its voice made Chase's hair stand on end. It sounded like a wolf. But that wasn't possible…

"Get back here!" Wilson snapped. "House!"

Chase crossed himself, an old habit from long ago. Something was sniffing the air near him, he could hear it. All he could do was pray it didn't find him.

Chase turned to face a pair of bright blue eyes. He screamed and bolted down the stairwell. House was a goddamned werewolf!

Wilson grabbed House before he could follow. "Now you've done it," Wilson snapped.

House didn't even have the sensibility to look sorry. He scratched at the ground with his paws, trying to get it through to Wilson that he reeeeeally wanted to chase Chase down the hall. Heh, chase Chase. He wagged his tail at his own little joke.

House whined as he felt Wilson's hands go to his chest and start pulling at his skin. Whining turned to whining of a different sort. "C'mon, Wilson, I just want to play with him," House begged.

"Will you listen to yourself?" Wilson snapped. "You sound like a wild animal!"

House stood up and gestured to himself. He stood naked, his fur draped over his shoulders and down his back. Its tail brushed just above his ankles, its head fell over his face like the hood of a cloak. "Do I look domesticated to you?" House asked.

Wilson pinched the bridge of his nose. "I am going to throw you on your back if you don't start acting human and fix this before Chase gets himself locked up by men in white coats," he threatened.

House shrank at the threat. It sounded silly but for some reason it made him want to do what Wilson commanded. He found himself leaning his head back, exposing his throat.

"Good," Wilson said. "Now get dressed and go find Chase or I swear I will drag you to the children's ward."

Find Chase. Yes, find Chase. But first, find clothes. Where did he throw that shirt?

"You've changed, House," Wilson said. "I knew that fur would change you."

House ignored him but he couldn't deny that Wilson was right. And he'd never be able to change back, not really. The best he could do was learn to live with himself as he was now and hope Wilson kept his promise, hope Wilson didn't leave.

-00000-

Chase sat in the darkened conference room, his world shattering around him. He'd always wanted proof of something more, something _beyond…_ Now he had it and it was terrifying. He hadn't wanted this… He held his long-neglected rosary, rubbed the beads across themselves for their comforting clatter. It drove away the silence, drove away the creatures of the night. He mumbled the Lord's Prayer under his breath.

"Our father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done…"

His head whipped around as the door opened, stopped mid-prayer. _Oh, God, help me…_

"We need to talk," House said.

Chase whimpered.

House dropped to the chair across the table from Chase. "I'm a werewolf," he admitted. "I have lycanthropy. I put on my fur and I turn into a wolf. I'm not bound by the moon and silver doesn't bother me. And you can put your little crucifix away, it doesn't do a thing. Questions? Comments?"

Chase held his rosary close, not caring if House said it didn't work. It made him feel better.

"Nothing? Right then." House got up to leave. If the stench of fear was the only smell he'd get out of Chase then he didn't see why he had to put up with it.

"Wait!" Chase said before he could stop himself.

House turned, expectant. He sniffed the air, disappointed by the lack of any change of scents. "Well?"

"Was it the bite or the pelt?" Chase asked. "What did it?"

"I'm not sure," House admitted. "If I had to guess I'd say both."

"You don't become a slavering monster?"

"I gain the form and instincts of the wolf," House said. "Mostly high sociability and monogamy. And I like to chase after things, especially when those things are tearing down stairs in fright." He gave Chase a deadpanned look.

Chase got the hint. "Sorry." He thought for a moment. He didn't remember being chased by a monstrous creature of the night. "Why didn't you?"

House mumbled to himself. He remembered a time when not being alpha was a source of shame. Now, not so much. "Wilson stopped me," he admitted. "He sent me here to stop you from getting yourself thrown in the psych ward. Threatened to drag me to the children's ward to play 'service dog'."

"But it's true!" Chase defended.

"Of course it's true," House agreed. "Truth doesn't mean a thing."

Something House had said struck Chase as funny. He tried to keep from laughing, failed. "He threatened to turn you into a service dog?"

House growled.

Chase stopped laughing pretty fast.

_At least he responds well to commands_, House thought. He could deal with this, even if Chase did smell like prey.

-00000-

"Case," Cuddy said, barging into House's office. Morning had dawned far too early for House and he had to resist the urge to growl at her challenge to his station. He tamped down the wolf's instincts and flipped the case file open.

"And there were complaints last night," Cuddy continued. "Something about someone on the roof howling at the moon. Sounds silly, I know, but you were on the roof and you were bitten by someone whom you claimed was a werewolf. Anything I should know?"

House resisted the urge to laugh as his fellows reacted to Cuddy's accusation. Masters giggled nervously, Taub looked interested, Foreman ignored it, and Chase looked terrified. He turned his attention back to Cuddy. "Every month around the full moon I turn into a slavering wolf-like monster with a craving for the scent of beer and the urge to howl like an idiot," he said, completely serious. He didn't even have to stretch the truth.

"Yeah, right," Cuddy said. "Gotcha. You didn't see anything. I still need to make sure. Howl for me."

House was taken aback. _Weird request_. "You want me to... howl… for you," he said, making sure.

"Get out on that balcony and howl for me," Cuddy ordered. "I want to compare the sound."

"And to see me look like an idiot," House predicted, getting up from his desk.

Foreman looked up, interested. Not every day did someone get to make House look like an idiot. Masters giggled, still having no idea how to react. Taub had gone back to his paperwork and Chase looked on in morbid fascination.

House threw open the balcony door. He leaned over the edge and shouted "Hey, Wilson!"

Wilson's balcony door opened. "What?" Wilson shouted back.

House took a deep breath and arched back. It didn't matter that it was broad daylight, that he wasn't wearing his fur, or that Wilson was going to drag him to the children's ward for this. If Cuddy wanted him to sing out his ownership of this hospital and its grounds, then he'd sing.

A long, haunting, inhuman howl issued from his throat. The world stopped, the humans on his territory all paused to listen to his proclamation, gazed up at his awesome power. It was intoxicating. He took a breath to do it again, to keep that beautiful feeling of lording over the world as its alpha.

Then a hand clamped over his mouth, an arm wrapped around his chest, a body pressed against his from behind. "Again?" Wilson demanded, trying to keep House from howling. "Last night I could understand but what the-"

"Ahem."

Wilson stopped, let House go. He turned around, sheepish at being caught by people.

Cuddy tapped her foot against the floor, arms crossed over her chest. "And why, House, were you howling at the moon from the roof last night?" she asked, unimpressed.

"Look what you did," Wilson whispered, hissing through a plastered grin.

"She told me to," House answered, also talking through an innocent grin.

"You didn't have to do it so well," Wilson scolded, still grinning.

House dropped the attempt at innocence. "Actually, I did," he said, all fooling-around lost.

Wilson pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

"That doesn't answer my question," Cuddy snapped. "Why were you on the roof last night playing werewolf?"

"Playing?" House asked.

"If clinical lycanthropy happened to be communicable I'd say he was handling it pretty well," Chase said. The rest of the fellows looked at him strangely, wondering why he'd felt the need to get involved. "Most people who have it lead perfectly normal lives. They just… don't think they're human."

"And how many people would that be?" Cuddy asked, annoyed.

"If you include the Otherkin community, quite a few," Chase said.

"I am not a furry," House snapped.

"Good to know," Taub said, deadpanned. Masters failed at hiding her laughter.

"I told you to keep your weird out of my hospital, House," Cuddy warned. She turned heel and left, not wanting to deal with this.

"Children's ward," Wilson warned.

"But…" House said. He stopped when Wilson gave him a stern look. He leaned his head back and lowered his eyes to expose his throat.

"Children's ward, tonight," Wilson said. He hopped the balcony wall, disappearing into his office. House followed to try and weasel out of being a service dog.

"Clinical lycanthropy isn't communicable," Foreman said.

"Say that again when you have any idea as to what it is," Masters countered.

"And why are you two in on this?" Taub asked. "Chase? Masters?"

"It's funny," Masters said. "And we really don't know what it is. I grew up with dogs, if House really does think he's a wolf it's not that bad. I mean, what if he thought he was a dragon? Then we'd be in trouble, random objects hoarded everywhere."

"What she said," Chase said, trying to cover for himself. "I know, I know, I shouldn't trust him, I should know better. But you weren't on the roof last night."

"That's right, what did you see?" Masters asked.

Chase pulled his rosary out of his jacket. "Something that makes me want to carry this," he admitted.

"Fair enough," Taub said. "So House was on the roof baying at the moon?"

"Naked," Chase said, making something plausible up. "And I don't think he knew what he was doing."

"Ewww," Foreman said, letting himself be juvenile for just a moment.

"Why would a rosary ward off House?" Masters asked. "Unless he really is…" Horror crossed her face as her mind jumped to the possibility that House was… was really…

"An atheist?" Taub supplied. "That he is."

"Not that," Masters said, trying to gather the courage to voice her worry.

"Last night wasn't the full moon," Chase said quickly, trying to cut off her train of thought.

Masters relaxed. "Oh," she said, relieved. "Okay, good, because for a moment there I thought-"

She didn't finish as House limped back into his office. He even used the hallway instead of the balcony. He snatched up the case file, fuming with a resigned anger. "Have to work the children's ward tonight like a damned service dog," he grumbled, just barely audible.

"Aww, that's so nice of you," Masters said, calling attention to House's muttering. "Can I come?"

House froze, cursed himself for ranting aloud. He turned to her, his face carefully schooled to neutrality. "You don't want to come with," he stated. "Trust me."

Masters nodded, disappointed.

House flipped open the case file and scanned the information within. Interesting. Looked fairly easy but at least it was interesting. He started writing symptoms on the board.

-00000-

The team had been sent home, the case on the mend, and Wilson was standing in House's office with a service dog harness and leash. The blinds were closed and the lights low, only the desk lamp illuminating the dark office.

House pouted.

"Humoring Cuddy or no, you still went against my orders," Wilson said. "You have to be punished or you're just going to do it again and again until you try to make me bare my throat to you. I don't want to put this hospital through a fight for dominance and I know you don't want that either."

House dragged his hands across the conference table, a human attempt at pawing the ground in discontent.

"I know you don't like being patient, House, but you have to learn. I'll be there the whole time to make sure it doesn't get too hard for you."

House pulled his vicodin bottle and dry-swallowed two tablets. He'd need them. He really didn't want to do this but he didn't want to make Wilson disappointed in him either. The wolf's instincts were really cramping his style. He couldn't be uncaring and aloof anymore, not where Wilson was concerned. It should have annoyed him more than it did. He snorted and started pulling off his clothes.

Wilson reached a hand out to rub behind House's ears. House leaned into the touch, still unbuttoning his shirt. He turned his head to lick Wilson's hand in a submissive gesture.

Wilson pulled his hand away. He knew he'd have no problem now.

The rest of House's clothes dropped quickly. He limped to his backpack and pulled from it his fur. He stroked it lovingly for a moment before throwing it over his shoulders.

Perspective changed and suddenly it seemed perfectly acceptable to House for Wilson to demand anything from him. Anything at all. He limped over to Wilson and laid his head in the man's lap, gazed up adoringly.

"Ready for the children's ward?" Wilson asked.

House nodded. He stood patiently while the odd harness was buckled over his chest and shoulders, wiggled to try to get it to sit comfortably. It didn't help that it seemed to have been made for a smaller dog.

"Harnesses for bigger dogs don't usually cover the chest," Wilson explained. "I wanted to make sure no one tried to take your fur off. This was the biggest one of this type they had. It's not too small, is it?"

House wiggled, shifted the harness over his shoulders until it sat right. It was a little tight but he could manage so long as he didn't have to run. He opened his mouth to answer, surprised himself for a moment when a bark issued instead of words. Heh, right. He guessed it was a good thing that wearing the fur felt so natural that he expected to be able to speak like he always had.

The leash was buckled onto the back of the harness. "You know the basic commands, right?" Wilson asked. "Sit, stay, speak, shake, roll over, that sort of thing?"

House gave him a deadpanned look.

"Right. Let's go then."

They weren't alone in the children's ward.

House groaned and hid behind his paws. Wilson pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. Masters bounced up to them.

"Hi!" she said. "I know House said I didn't want to come with but volunteering in the children's ward sounded like such a nice thing to do that I wanted to do it anyway!" She noticed House. "Oh how cute! He's so big!" She dropped to her knees in front of him, bringing her head to the same level as his. "What's his…" She trailed off as she looked into his eyes. Her face fell in fear tinged with recognition. She stood up and walked off without another word.

"I blame you," Wilson said.

House gave him an indignant look.

"Where did Miss Masters go?" asked the orderly, one Nurse Mitchell.

"She had to, ah, leave," Wilson explained. "I don't know when she'll be back."

"That's too bad, she hasn't logged her hours yet," Mitchell said. "She won't get credit for them unless she comes back."

"I bring a service dog," Wilson offered. House gave Wilson one last pleading look before resigning himself to a night of torment. "On loan from my, ah, my cousin. Yes, my cousin. I wanted to try him out in the children's oncology ward."

Nurse Mitchell ran his fingers through House's fur, checking him for cleanliness, fleas, general build. "He's big," he marveled. "Why hasn't he been neutered?"

"Post-operative trauma," Wilson explained. "They're neuticles." He resolutely ignored the glare House leveled at him. "There's a surgical scar on his right thigh. A chunk of muscle had to be removed. He limps but I figured it might be useful to show the kids that a physical disability like that doesn't have to be limiting."

Nurse Mitchell looked at House's teeth, his eyes. Their bright blue color gave him pause. "Is he deaf?" he asked. "His eyes are blue."

"No, he's not deaf. Their color doesn't have any special meaning as far as I know."

"What's his name?"

Wilson panicked for a split second. He hadn't thought of a name. He couldn't just give House's name… His mind made a series of questionable leaps in logic. _House is a werewolf, I just saw that movie last month, what was his name… _"Talbot," Wilson said, hoping House wasn't going to pee on his shoes in protest or something. It was much better than his other instinct because he knew for sure that House would take offense to being called 'Mittens'.

"All right, Talbot, we're just getting the kids put to bed," Mitchell said, taking the leash. House gave Wilson a pleading look. Mitchell started heading into the ward, stopped when he realized House hadn't moved. "Talbot, heel," Mitchell ordered.

House ignored the nurse. He was too busy accusing Wilson of betrayal, or leaving him here to be tortured by a bunch of children.

"He must be nervous," Wilson explained, taking the leash from Nurse Mitchell. "Talbot, heel," he ordered.

House rolled his eyes and fell in line. "I guess I'm taking him around, then," Wilson realized.

"I guess you are," Mitchell said. He led the way to the oncology ward.

House paused at the door. He didn't want to go in there and it had nothing to do with watching Wilson go all soft over bald-headed children. It was worse. Of all the smells wafting from that room: child, antiseptic, urine, latex, tubing, ozone, one smell overpowered his mind and gave him pause. Every scent of child in that room was tainted with the stench of poison.

They'd all been poisoned.

His rational mind pointed out it was all from the chemotherapy drugs, that they were being poisoned in an attempt to save their lives. It didn't matter.

It terrified him.

Wilson noticed House had stopped at the door. "What is it?" he asked. At the pleading look in House's eyes he knelt down to House's level. "I know you're scared," he whispered. "We don't have to stay here long. Just let them pet you. That's all you have to do, let them pet you, stick your nose in their hands, just by being there you'll make them forget the pain they're in. They'll feel like the luckiest kids in the world. I know you can do this."

House nodded, just a little bit. The idea of poisoned children terrified him but he could at least try to make them feel better.

Wilson led him in.

"Doggy!"

"Hi, Dr. Wilson!"

"Puppy!"

Wilson took the floor. "Hi, everyone. This is Talbot. He wanted to say hi to you all and help put you to bed."

"Aww, but Miss Masters was going to read us another story!"

"How about I read you a story?" Wilson said. "Talbot can pick one out for us." Wilson undid House's leash and urged him to pick something from the bookshelf.

House gave Wilson an indignant look before giving up and looking for something fitting. No Jack London, no Kipling, nothing good, not even anything by the Brothers Grimm…

"Dr. Wilson, are you sure Talbot can really pick something?" Nurse Mitchell asked. "Dogs can't read."

House turned and gave him an insulted look before going back to the shelf. Hmm… This one might be funny. He pulled it out.

"He just did," Wilson pointed out. "Bring it here, Talbot."

House turned his back on Wilson and set his butt on the floor in a grand gesture.

The children giggled. House pawed at the book, managed to open it to the first page. It was some weird version of the Three Little Pigs as told from the point of view of the wolf and how he was framed. House wagged his tail. This was perfect!

"Talbot…"

House picked the book up in his mouth and carried it daintily to Wilson. He attempted to look innocent.

Wilson looked at the book and had to laugh. "You just want to hear this because the wolf is the hero, don't you?" he accused. House nodded, broad and blatant about it. He wagged his tail at the unnerved squeak Nurse Mitchell let out. "Okay, go sit down." House followed direction, plopping unceremoniously among the group of bald children.

"You all know the story of the three little pigs," Wilson began, putting on a gruff, wolfish voice. "You know who I am. That's right, I'm the Wolf and I was framed. Big and Bad they called me. Let me tell you what _really_ happened."

House lost track of the rest of the story. Something about the wolf with a cold knocking on the pig's doors asking for a cup of sugar then sneezing their houses down and eating them since they were, well, dead and right there. House was too busy being ambushed by eager hands as children used him as a pillow.

One hand slammed into his thigh as a boy tried to get a better position. House stopped himself from snapping at the kid, but only just. Instead he yelped then tried to hide his snout under a paw, panting for breath. Holy hell that **hurt**…

Wilson stopped mid story, shocked by the sound. He gave the book to Nurse Mitchell and went over to House. "What happened?" he asked.

Ten different versions of events were told to him by various children, most consisting of 'not me'. He didn't hear them, instead was focused on House and his obvious agony. "Talbot, what happened?"

House pulled his head out from under his paws and leaned over to lick his thigh. It helped to focus him, helped to keep him from eating that inconsiderate little bastard.

"I see," Wilson said. "Okay, children, sit down. Let me tell you a different story about a dog named Talbot." House snorted. "Talbot was a nice dog, a big dog, liked playing ball, liked running around, liked chasing things, all the games dogs like to play. But one day Talbot got sick. Something was wrong with his leg. It hurt him so bad he couldn't walk anymore but no one could figure out what was wrong. It took a very smart doctor to figure out what was wrong but by then…

"Talbot had to have surgery to remove part of his leg muscle, the part that was hurting him so much. He's much better now but his leg will always hurt him now. He can't run anymore, he can't chase things. He limps. And when someone presses on his leg in the right spot it hurts him a very great deal. But he's still a nice dog, a very smart dog. And tonight he wanted to come here to see all of you and help you get better."

"I'm sorry, Dr. Wilson," said a little boy near tears. "I just wanted to hear the story better and I,I…" His mouth trembled and tears started to fall.

"I know you didn't mean it, Stephen," Wilson said. "But I don't think I'm the one you should apologize to."

House groaned and sat up, filed away the urge to pee on Wilson's shoes for later.

"I'm sorry," Stephen said, crying. He held his hands behind his back and dragged his foot on the floor. "I didn't mean to hurt you, Talbot."

House had mind to ignore the kid. Then he caught sight of Wilson. Wilson flicked his eyes at the boy then glared. House sighed and licked the kid's face. The kid threw his arms around House's neck in a big six-year-old's hug.

Wilson wasn't going to have a shoe left in his closet by the time House got back at him for this.

They didn't get out of the main ward for an hour. By that time House was dragging himself along, barely able to stay on his feet. He made it as far as the hallway just outside the ward before collapsing.

"I know you're in pain," Wilson said.

_You think?_ House gave him the most incredulous look he could put together before growling bloody murder. Only the fact that he had no idea what would really happen prevented him from biting Wilson right there.

"Oh my god it's huge," came a shocked voice. Wilson looked up at one of the general nurses. Nurse Danae, he thought.

"Service dog," Wilson said. "The kids just put him through the wringer. Could you get me a bowl of water for him, please?"

The nurse ran off.

Wilson fished a vial of pills out of his jacket. He slipped a vicodin onto his palm. "I know you want more but it's only been two hours since your last dose," he murmured. He held out the pill for House who sighed and licked it up.

Footsteps came up behind them. Nurse Danae handed Wilson a pan of water. House washed down the vicodin tablet, silently cursing the fact that they always seemed to get caught in his throat in this form. It was annoying and unnerving.

"So… what breed is he?" Danae asked.

Wilson froze. He didn't know the difference between a whippet and a wolfhound. "A really big one," he said, going for humor.

House snorted.

"I can tell," Danae said, deadpanned. "I really like dogs, Dr. Wilson. My bachelor's degree wasn't in nursing, it was in biology. I wrote a thesis on dog evolution. Now, I can tell something's up here because that right there isn't a dog. That's not even a wolf. That's a dire wolf. Any particular reason you're parading around an extinct prehistoric megafauna as a 'service dog'?"

Before Wilson could say 'look! a distraction!' Nurse Mitchell came out of the children's ward, gushing praises.

"I can't thank you enough for bringing Talbot with you tonight, Dr. Wilson," Mitchell said. "The children loved him. They even loved the story you made up about how he got hurt. Pure genius there, tying the dog's injury to their own situations. They're all asking when they'll get to see him again."

Wilson sighed in gratitude. Danae gave them all a suspicious look before heading off. "That's up to Talbot, isn't it?" he said.

House narrowed his eyes at Wilson.

"You don't have to pretend anymore, I know the dog doesn't understand what we're saying," Mitchell said, clamping a hand on Wilson's shoulder.

"I'd be careful before insulting his intelligence like that," Wilson warned. He dreaded what that look in House's eyes meant for the nurse. "He might take offense and pee on you or something."

"No, he's a good dog, he wouldn't pee on me." Mitchell tried to scratch House behind the ears.

_That's it!_ House got up and stood alongside Mitchell. The nurse was too busy petting House's flank to notice when House lifted his leg in a grand gesture and took yellow, urine-y revenge against Mitchell's shoes.

"What the hell?" Mitchell jumped back.

"He really does understand everything you say," Wilson explained.

Mitchell sat on a nearby bench and started trying to strip off his cloth booties to get his shoes off. He couldn't quite manage it as he was trying to do it without actually touching anything warm and wet. "Service dogs are usually trained not to do that," Mitchell snapped.

"Service dogs also aren't usually trained to read or comprehend medical terminology," Wilson said without remorse for Mitchell's shoes. "This one is. Makes for a better service dog when he can understand what's wrong with the patient. When he can think about how his actions help the patient instead of just reacting to commands. I have the feeling if Talbot was a 'usual' service dog Stephen would have been bitten pretty badly tonight, a whole lot of kids would be traumatized, and the hospital would be in a great deal of trouble. Instead, you're out one pair of shoes. Weigh those two scenarios." He pulled gently on House's leash and walked off, House limping heavily.

"Feel better?" Wilson asked.

House gave him a satisfied look.

They reached a fork in the corridor. House headed for the elevator, ready to go back to his office. Wilson went the other way, something else in mind. The yank on the leash when their paths diverged gave them both pause. House whined, a pitiable look on his face as he all but begged for the night to be over.

"One last thing, I promise," Wilson said.

House sat down and glared.

"Please."

House laid down in protest. He turned away from Wilson.

Wilson came over and sat down next to House. He scratched House behind the ears, ran his hands down his back. Wilson reached over in front and unfastened the service dog harness. "Before you decide you're done, hear me out," he said. "There's a little girl in the long-term ICU who's been asking for 'Rufus' for the past week. According to her parents, Rufus is her imaginary friend. He's a big wolf-like creature with brown fur that always slept with her at night. Sound familiar? She has acute myelogenous leukemia and she's already rejected a bone marrow transplant. I expect we'll lose her any day now. Please. All I'm asking is for you to let her see you. Just let her know you're there. Maybe if she sees you she'll stop thinking her friend has abandoned her."

House groaned. **This** is what he was afraid of. This was why he was against being dragged to the children's ward on principle. Wilson had another pet cancer patient, another little kid who'd captured his heart and would break it when she died. And now he was dragging House in on it to soothe his own tortured soul, without an ounce of regard for how House felt about whole thing.

And of course House was going to go along with it. Because as much as it broke Wilson when the kid died, it _shattered_ him when the kid died without Wilson being able to do something dumb and grand and utterly sappy like this.

House slammed his forepaws against the floor and heaved himself up. He gave a long-suffering sigh and started off in the direction of the long-term ICU.

Wilson followed.

-00000-

Little Tanya was so tired. The hospital bed was big and scary; all the machines made her feel so small. Her Mommy and Daddy were right next to her as always but the bed was still so huge and empty and cold. Everything was so cold and she hurt so much. It was always so cold lately, so much more scary now that Rufus stopped showing up. She didn't know what she'd done wrong and she was sorry, she was so sorry for whatever she did that drove him away and now it was so cold…

The door opened. Dr. Wilson came in. He beckoned her parents out of the room and she was alone, so alone, so cold…

Her parents came back in and they were crying. They were always crying now.

"Someone wants to see you, Tanya," Dr. Wilson said. She shook her head. No one wanted to see her anymore. All her friends stopped coming by and even Rufus was gone.

And then her eyes went wide as Rufus walked in. She tried to sit up but she was too tired. She tried to reach out for him but her arms were too heavy. "Rufus," she whispered.

Rufus came up to her and laid his head on the bed next to her. He was so warm. Daddy picked up her hand for her and put it on Rufus's head. He was warm and fuzzy and _here_ and he forgave her, he had to have forgiven her or he wouldn't be here.

Rufus whined and put his front paws on the bed. She wanted to move over to give him room, to let him climb up because he was so big, he needed the room and the bed was big enough but she was so _tired_… He licked her hand and snuggled his head right up next to her tummy. He had such big blue eyes and they were so sad. "Don't be sad, Rufus," she whispered. "It's okay now."

And it was okay. It was warming up. She wasn't cold anymore. She didn't hurt anymore. She could finally go to sleep…

-00000-

"Time of death, ten forty-three PM," Wilson said. "I'm sorry."

Robert and Sandra Robinson held each other and cried. "Thank you," Sandra said.

"We did everything we could," Wilson said.

"And more," Sandra said, looking down at House. He still laid his head next to the little girl. He could _smell_ the moment she'd died, more than just the loss of bodily function. That and he wasn't sure he could stand if he dropped back to the floor; with his forepaws on the bed he was supporting essentially all of his weight on his rear legs. His thigh started to tremble with the effort, the prelude to a spasm. He dropped to the floor with a terrific groan.

And was surprised by a pair of arms around him. Sandra had dropped to the floor in front of him and was hugging him like her life depended on it. "Thank you, thank you, you big, beautiful _miracle_," she said, tears wetting his fur. "You made her happy. You made her _happy_."

"I don't think we can thank you enough for what you did for her, Dr. Wilson," Robert said. "If he needs somewhere to go we'd be happy to adopt him."

"I think his place is here," Wilson said, trying to turn down the offer tactfully.

"We understand," Sandra said. She held House's face in her hands. "You help other people here, don't you? Such a sweet angel."

House whined.

Sandra kissed him on the top of his head. "We'll never forget what you did for her," she told him. He liked a tear off her face. She hugged him close again.

When he got out of this he was going to curl up with a giant bottle of scotch.

-00000-

Despite the late hour Wilson gained a lot of stares as he pushed the wheelchair down the hall. It may have had something to do with the fact that the wheelchair was occupied by a giant werewolf that lay with its head draped over one of the armrests. Or maybe it was because he was talking to it like it understood him. Or even weirder, the fact that it appeared to be holding up its half of the conversation.

"If you were in that much pain you should have done something about it," Wilson said.

Groan. Yowl. Bark.

"Don't tell me you didn't notice it, you always notice it."

Growl.

"Unless…" Wilson looked overly scandalized. "Unless you didn't care how much pain you were in. Was that little girl really more important than your own agony?"

Snarl.

"You know what, I think she was."

Harumph.

"You know, I think, deep down, you really are a sweet, sweet man. You just refuse to let people see it."

Ignore.

"It's harder to act the complete bastard like this, isn't it?"

Growl. Groan. House curled around himself, yelped when this meant moving his leg.

"Give me a minute, we're almost to your office then we can get you your vicodin."

House thumped his tail against the arm of the wheelchair.

The got to House's office without much more than a few stares. As soon as they were inside, the door closed, the blinds closed, Wilson dropped to his knees in front of the chair and draped his arms around House. "Thank you for doing that for me," he said. "I know you didn't want to. I know it hurt you. I know you didn't do it for her. Thank you."

House pulled off his fur and fell out of the wheelchair as he unfolded and its seat couldn't handle the position he was in. He cried out in pain as he hit the floor and just laid there. The wheelchair shot back, rolled away. "Not moving," he mumbled, face pressed to the carpet.

The carpet smelled like ass. He couldn't bring himself to care.

"I mean it," Wilson said, still kneeling. "Thank you, House. I know you didn't want to. You didn't have to. But you did and that means the world."

House groaned, pulled his face out of ass-smelling carpet. "I am going to kill Masters," he swore. "I am going to eat Nurse Mitchell. I am going to chew on all of your shoes and piss all over your dumb ties. But first I am going to get up." He tried, instead gave out a strangled scream when his thigh threatened to spasm. "But first I am going to think of getting up," he amended.

Wilson ran his hand down the fur pelt still draped over House's thigh. House gave a warning growl but didn't resist when Wilson lifted the pelt and started lightly kneading the cramping muscle. House shifted to give Wilson more access, sighed as warm hands massaged overworked muscles, quelled their fire, coaxed them into laying still.

It didn't stop the pain. But it lessened it enough that House was willing to maybe spare Wilson's ties. Maybe.

-00000-

House was contemplating what exactly he'd do. He was torn between chewing up Wilson's shoes or peeing on them. Maybe chewing them and then peeing on them. Maybe chewing some and peeing on others. Maybe using Wilson's ties to tie the man down and shoving his own shoes up his butt.

Nah. Too unsatisfying.

He hadn't been able to go home last night. Nor had Wilson but at least Wilson had a couch he could sleep on. House had spent the entire night propped up in the recliner surrounded by extra pillows, the heating pad, a blanket, a full bottle of vicodin…

Okay, so maybe it wasn't all bad.

Point being, it was a very long night. And a very annoying day was expected, what with Masters maybe having figured him out.

Foreman was the first to arrive. Minutes later Taub came in, coffee in hand. They must have started carpooling…

"You're here early," Taub said as a greeting.

"Never left," House admitted.

"Case?"

"Can't move."

Taub winced and dropped the subject.

Masters was next, lugging a bag of study materials. She made an 'eep' sound when she saw House but didn't say anything, instead built her little fort of textbooks and overly organized notes to study for tomorrow's test.

Chase was last. House wrinkled his nose. "Having interesting sex doesn't make up for not showering afterward," he said.

Chase nodded, impressed. "And what made it interesting?" he asked.

"You smell like rubber polish and butt sex," House said, deadpanned. He smirked when Chase blushed and hid behind making coffee.

Taub shook his head, not wanting to know. Foreman ignored the whole thing. Masters giggled.

"My, what big eyes you have, Dr. House," she said.

House placed the reference immediately. He knew what it meant, that Masters had figured it out. He could ignore her or…

…Or he could see how interesting things could get around here.

"The better to see you with, my dear," House said.

Chase paused in his coffee-making, turning to stare from House to Masters, back to House. Taub recognized _some_thing was going on, just not what. Foreman didn't want to know.

Masters giggled, her suspicions confirmed. This was one of those cases where she'd have to lie. If she told the truth she'd end up kicked out of medicine for not being science-y enough, or whatever it was that her colleagues in art school meant when they went on about scientists being bad at life. She didn't get artists; they didn't realize science was an art too. But then scientists didn't realize art was also a science. This must be what House always meant when he said people were morons; they kinda were.

Masters was drawn out of her reverie by Cuddy storming in.

"House, I warned you to keep your weird out of my hospital!" Cuddy accused.

"And what did I do?" House asked.

"There was howling again!"

"And you're so sure it was me?" House asked, going for innocent.

Cuddy wasn't buying it. "Clinic, now," she ordered.

House waited for her to storm out. She wasn't budging. "Now, House."

House sighed and gestured to the wheelchair still by the balcony door. "Chase, wheel that over," he said.

This time Foreman's head shot up in utter shock. Taub stared in surprised confusion. Chase shook himself out of the shock and pushed the wheelchair over like it was rigged with a bomb. Masters was unfazed; she didn't know of any significance. Cuddy was likewise unimpressed, unwilling to believe House was daring to…

Oh my god, he was. House accepted Chase's arm and kind of fell into the wheelchair, not able to put any weight at all on his bad leg.

"What did you do?" Cuddy asked.

"Wilson lost a patient last night in a particularly spectacular way," House said. "I didn't go home last night. Instead I spent it here, helping him through it. Go ask him about it; bring tissues." He started wheeling himself out of the office, away from the elevator.

Cuddy leaned her head out his office door. "I said clinic!" she shouted.

A faint 'Bite me!' was heard from the direction of the men's room.

"He wasn't here last night," Cuddy muttered.

"Yes he was," Masters said. "I saw him and Wilson in the children's oncology ward last night. I didn't get to turn in my hours but Nurse Mitchell can confirm I was there. I read stories to the children, they're so cute!"

"Oh," Cuddy said. Now she felt foolish. She stalked off to Wilson's office, to check on his side of the story.

She found him in his office, slumped over his desk half-asleep. Ink was leaking from his pen onto a patient folder. "Bad night?" she asked.

Wilson jumped, hissed when his neck complained at the sudden movement. He tried to pop his neck, only succeeded in turning the dull ache into a sharp one. "We lost Tanya Robinson last night," he admitted. At Cuddy's blank look he supplied details. "Five years old, acute myelogenous leukemia, one failed bone marrow transplant, long-term ICU."

"I'm sorry," Cuddy said, anger at House melting. She almost felt sorry for sending him to the clinic. Almost.

"She'd been calling for her imaginary friend for a week," Wilson said, going melancholy again. "House found me a service dog that looked just like she described. It's an…" He wracked his brain for the information House had fed him for just this occasion. "An American Alsatian. Looks just like a dire wolf. I brought the dog in and she thought her imaginary friend had come to life." He blinked, the world going fuzzy as the tears came back. "And then she died. She was so happy. Her parents called him a goddamned _angel_ for making their little girl happy…" Wilson took a well-used tissue out of his jacket pocket and wiped his eyes.

Cuddy sat down on Wilson's couch. "Oh," she said. She didn't have anything else to say.

"I'm okay," Wilson said, regaining composure.

"Get some rest," Cuddy said, leaving in a daze. That daze lasted until she reached House's office and saw him trying to pop wheelies in the wheelchair. "House," she said warningly.

House turned to look at her, losing his concentration. The wheelchair flipped and he ended up sprawled on the floor. He groaned and gave her a seething glare.

"I don't know what or why you did what you did but thank you," she said. "You're free from clinic today."

"You might want to tell Foreman, I already sent him." House rolled over onto his back, laying there to make it look like he'd meant to end up on the floor.

Cuddy looked like she wanted to scold him but couldn't. "Just stop fooling around," she said, pointing to the upturned wheelchair. She left.

"I thought you were in pain," Taub said conversationally, as if he wasn't accusing House of lying with his entire body.

"Are you kidding?" House said, just as conversationally. "I'm in agony. Or I would be if I could feel any of me. You have no idea what I'm on right now." He held up a hand and started waving it in front of his face, giggling at the trails.

"Do I really smell like rubber and sex?" Chase asked, standing over House.

"Rubber polish and butt sex," House clarified. "So I'm guessing shiny latex rubber, probably black. It's always black. And butt sex. What was it, a bondage party?"

Chase blushed again and skulked back to the conference table. He hid behind a journal.

"Hairy bear-men in ass-less chaps?" House asked. Now he was just poking at Chase. "Rubber mistress in a latex cat-suit? Oh, I know, it was spanking with a wooden paddle. What is it with you British and your spanking fetishes?"

"Isn't he Australian?" Masters asked.

"They put the Queen on their currency, they're British," House said. "Or we can go the Catholic route. You're supposed to punish yourself when thinking dirty thoughts, right? How is that not expected to create a religion of S&M fetishists?"

"You're not supposed to enjoy it," Chase pointed out.

"Didn't stop you, apparently," Masters said.

"Taub, help me out here," Chase said, pleading.

"Tell her about the case where the patient was the submissive of a dominatrix you used to scene with at parties," Taub said.

"Ouch," Masters said, giggling.

"I hate you all," Chase said, deadpanned. He left, presumably to go take that shower.

-00000-

"Do you know why you're here, Dr. House?"

House looked at the shrink in contempt. It didn't matter Dr. Frank was a professor here at Princeton, he was still a shrink. "Cuddy said she reported me," House explained. "Said she got tired of dealing with my 'weird'."

"Dr. House, you were bitten by a woman you believed to be a werewolf. She believed she was a werewolf. Your successful diagnosis of _C. Botulinium_ Toxin type C poisoning hinged on this belief."

"All true," House admitted. "But then you know that."

"And you began acting, ah, 'weird' after that bite. Vivid dreams, compulsions, minor blackouts. Dr. House, I'll be frank."

House groaned at that.

Dr. Frank grinned. "Always works," he said.

"Can we skip the bad jokes?" House demanded.

"Sorry. I'll cut to the chase here. Do you believe you're a werewolf?"

House tensed up. He really did not want to answer that. "Is it really that important?" he asked. "The dreams have lessened, the compulsions were never dangerous, and the blackouts stopped a while ago."

"And you had an MRI that showed no physical reason for any of those symptoms. You weren't taking anything out of the ordinary. Did you believe then that you were turning into a werewolf?"

"I didn't know what to believe," House admitted.

"But you do now?"

House still didn't answer.

"There are reports of interesting bouts of non-human behavior," Frank said. "One instance where you threw one of your fellows against a wall and held him there until he submitted to your will. Several others where you ended an argument with one Dr. Wilson by baring your throat to him. Unconfirmed reports of someone howling from the roof of the teaching hospital."

House growled.

"And that," Frank pointed out.

House stopped, tamping down his instincts.

"Dr. House, you have clinical lycanthropy," Dr. Frank said.

"What caused it?" House asked, wanting to hear that admission of 'I don't know' or even better, blaming the bite.

"I don't know," Frank said. "As best as psychology has detected it's a delusion secondary to bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, neither of which you have ever shown symptoms of. Your only trigger seems to have been that bite. It's possible you've always had it but have compensated until that point."

"I knew you were going to blame the bite!" House crowed.

Dr. Frank ignored him. "Since we don't know the actual trigger there's very little we can do."

"So, what, you're just hoping it'll get better on its own?"

"Basically," Frank said. "Normally I'd tell you to limit interactions with patients but considering what I heard from Dr. Cuddy you're already doing pretty good on that front."

"If you can get me out of clinic duty forever I will be in your debt," House said.

"You have fellows, send them."

"Close enough."

-00000-

"And he's just letting you keep working?" Cuddy demanded.

She'd stormed into the diagnostics office with Dr. Frank's letter in her hand. House was standing at the white board, halfway through a differential. Foreman was trying to ward off a headache of frustration, Taub was trying to stay focused on their patient, Masters and Chase were not surprised.

"Oh, and I have a note that gets me out of clinic duty," House said. "The shrink says I should just send the puppies instead of doing it myself. Something about not being left alone with patients for too long. I didn't listen, really."

"But… but…" Cuddy tried gesturing to regain her voice. "But you think you're a werewolf!" she shouted.

"That is what 'clinical lycanthropy' means," House agreed. "Don't worry, I'll take full moons off and you won't have to worry about anything. I promise I won't even hump your leg. Wilson, maybe…"

Cuddy glared at him, an artery in her temple pounding visibly.

"And I'm officially not a danger to myself or others," House continued. "So there's really nothing we need to discuss, at least not according to those equal opportunity guys. Unless you want to try going against them but that usually ends badly for the boss, legality and all that."

Cuddy turned and tried to storm off.

"Oh, and I need to take a sample of my patient's brain tissue to look for prions," House called after her.

Cuddy left before she needed to scream.

House grinned as she ran off. Sometimes he wished he had his tail full time just so he could wag it.

Cuddy stormed directly to Wilson's office.

"With a patient, House," Wilson said the moment the door opened.

"I'm not House," Cuddy snapped.

"Still with a patient." He gestured to the man with the seven year old girl in his lap.

Cuddy closed the door behind her but not before hearing the man ask about the service dog in the children's ward.

She was going to kill Wilson and House, she decided. House for bringing all this weird and Wilson for encouraging it. But first she was going to lie down before she hit something.

-00000-

"She's going to kill us," Wilson said. He was at House's place, not sure he wanted to know what House was doing in the kitchen.

House was stir-frying something, conveniently forgetting to throw all the meat into the pan. He picked up a chunk of raw beef and popped it in his mouth. He sucked meat juice off his fingers, wanting to get every little bit of flavor…

"House," Wilson called again.

House popped his head out of the kitchen. He swallowed, offered Wilson a beef cube. "Want some?" he offered.

Wilson made a face. "I'm good," he said.

House shrugged and bit into beef piece. He hummed in contentment.

"I was saying, Cuddy is going to kill us," Wilson said, trying to get House back toward some vague humanity for a moment.

House shrugged. "I know," he said. "What, you think we should show her? Preempt her homicide attempt by getting her to show us her throat? Or would you rather we sit here and wait for her to challenge us?"

"I have an idea," Wilson said. "Take the full moon off. I'll bring you in that night as Talbot."

House knew what that meant. "What did I do?" he whined.

"It doesn't have to be a punishment," Wilson defended.

House pouted. He snatched another cube of raw beef. It made him feel a little better.

-00000-

The sun had set and the full moon was peeking just over the treetops when Wilson led House into the hospital on harness and leash. Having his fur on made him feel only marginally better about this but he trusted Wilson to know what he was doing. He hoped.

"Wilson! Where the hell is…" Cuddy demanded as soon as she saw him. And then she saw House. "Oh my god!"

Wilson smiled sweetly. Somewhere close by a child pointed out the really big puppy. "Cuddy, this is Talbot," he said. He led House to her office, made a gesture indicating he wanted to talk to her alone.

Cuddy nodded and let them into her office, unable to take her eyes off the giant limping dog. It looked like a… wolf…

What the hell?

House sat down on Cuddy's office floor. Wilson stood next to him, waited patiently for Cuddy to close the door and ensure their privacy.

"This is why I believe House is a werewolf," Wilson said.

"You're insane," Cuddy whispered.

"Am I?" Wilson asked.

House licked at his thigh to emphasize the scarring. He smirked when recognition crossed her face. He looked up to stare at her, watched as recognition turned to nausea and terror.

"House?" Cuddy asked.

House nodded, slowly, blatantly.

She squeaked as her world collapsed.

"Now that that's cleared up, we're going to the children's oncology ward," Wilson announced.

House looked at Wilson in utter betrayal, whined his protest.

"You were bad," Wilson said. "Look, you broke Cuddy."

House growled.

"I don't care if it was my idea. We're still here for the children."

House laid down and pouted.

"Please, House?" Wilson asked, laying it on real thick. "I told them all you were coming. They were so excited. You don't want to disappoint the children, do you? The poor, scared, hurting cancer children who were all looking forward to seeing you to brighten their dreary little lives?"

House groaned and picked himself off the floor, started off to the elevator. Wilson let himself be dragged out of Cuddy's office, mindful of the broken squeaking she was making behind them.

Once in the elevator Wilson stopped holding back his laughter. He fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around House. "That was brilliant!" he crowed.

House barked happily, tail wagging.

Now if Cuddy had a problem with his being a werewolf not only could she not do anything about it, she couldn't even claim he was a danger; Cuddy had already been informed by three nurses, eight parents, and a donor that Talbot was one of the sweetest, most well-behaved, most intelligent service dogs they'd ever seen.

Sure, half his fellows and his boss now knew he wasn't human. But what were they really doing to be able to do about it? Tell someone?

Heh. Let them.

-00000-

Cuddy sat in her office, her perfectly logical, structured world in pieces all around her. It wasn't surprising, really, that the culprits were the usual, the dastardly duo House and Wilson.

It had to have been some sort of trick. It **had** to. But where would Wilson find a dog that size? A dog that looked that much like a damned giant wolf? A dog with a surgical scar on its right thigh, a dog with House's eyes?

It couldn't be a trick. It couldn't be real. It couldn't be anything.

She had to see this for herself. If it was a trick they wouldn't actually be there.

Except they were. One fuming trip up to the children's oncology ward showed Masters reading some story to the children, something about three little wolves and a big bad pig. The children were all clustered around House, some petting him, some using him as a pillow, one trying to feed him the dessert from his food tray, one asking him if she could ride him like a horse. It took Cuddy a moment to realize the child was asking House directly if she could ride him rather than asking one of the nurses if it was okay.

House sighed and looked at the other children. They seemed to realize his intention and all started asking for pony rides. House made a big production of sighing and rolling onto his belly so they could get on one-at-a-time.

"He's so good with them," Wilson murmured.

Cuddy startled, only just realizing he'd been standing behind her.

"He makes a big production about it but I think he secretly likes it," Wilson said.

"And he's really…"

"And no one knows," Wilson said. "That's the beauty of it. They just think he's a service dog. Who happens to be able to read, to understand medical terminology, and to essentially converse with the children."

Cuddy squeaked.

"Unless, of course, you want to tell them they can't play with Talbot anymore," Wilson said, gesturing to the gaggle of children.

"You're doing this on purpose," Cuddy accused. "You're trying to keep me from doing anything about this. He's dangerous, Wilson. He's a werewolf. What if he bites someone?"

"You could ask that about any service dog," Wilson said.

"What if someone sees him changing back? What if someone recognizes him? Masters is one of his fellows, what if they find out?"

"Who says they haven't?"

Cuddy squeaked again.

House had finished giving the children pony-rides and was ready to fall down and stay there. He looked over to see Cuddy talking to Wilson. He laid down and looked pityingly at the children.

One of the children went over to Wilson. "Dr. Wilson, I think Talbot's hurting," she said.

"That's because Talbot knows he shouldn't be giving anyone pony-rides," Wilson said. "He knows it hurts him and now I'm going to have to carry him home."

House harrumphed and made an attempt to look uncaring. Children giggled all around him.

"Remember why he's hurting when he can't move tomorrow," Wilson murmured to Cuddy. Cuddy could do nothing but nod, mute and somewhat disturbed.

"All right, children, it's time for bed," the nurse called out. She ushered children off to their beds. Wilson excused himself from Cuddy and helped House get up, surreptitiously held out a vicodin for House to take under the guise of licking Wilson's hand. House swallowed hard, successfully getting the pill down this time.

Cuddy couldn't take the sight anymore. This was just far too much weird for her to process. There was something seriously wrong with her world if the cantankerous man she'd known for so long could turn into a wolf and play with children, even if it wasn't entirely willing.

She didn't even finish her night's paperwork. It could wait. Whatever it was it could wait until the world made sense again.

As she left the hospital she heard a faint howl echoing from the roof. It was drowned out by a loud honk as she dropped her head to her steering wheel.

She could deal with this. She could…

She just didn't know how.

-00000-

House leaned against the brick wall, laughed like a man who'd just been granted a stay of execution. His fur was draped over his shoulders, barely protecting him from the chilly night air. Wilson sat next to him, lending body heat and his own relieved giggles.

"I think it'll work," House said. He reached into Wilson's jacket pocket and pulled out the bottle of vicodin.

"Haven't you had enough?" Wilson asked.

"You gave me one, you sadist," House said. He shook out one more and dry-swallowed it, stuffed the bottle back into Wilson's jacket.

"Feeling better yet?" Wilson asked.

"Not yet," House said, hoisting himself to his feet. The fur hung down his back, itching to wrap itself around him. He let it, arching back to howl again. The mixture of voices as he changed was interesting, lent an incredible otherworldly quality.

"Let's go home, House," Wilson said.

House wagged his tail.

Things were going to work.

End

-00000-

Both stories read to the cancer kids exist. They're _The True Story of the Three Little Pigs_ by Jon Scieszka and _The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig_ by Eugene Trivizas. Both great stories, I read them when I was a kid.


End file.
